What has happened to common sense regarding our state laws governing small businesses? How can we abide by these laws if we are not able to even see them!

Folks who serve food at special events such as church picnics, fairs, farmers markets, Art in the Park events, car shows, charity events, fisheries, Fourth of July events and more all are being subjugated to regulations that the event organizers and vendors have no way to easily access.

Dan Mielke(Photo: File photo)

Instead, they are at the mercy of fire marshals who have the ability to shut them down on the spot for non-compliance, or at the least disrupt them to the point that they have to jump through ridiculous hoops that endanger the public.

Recently in Wisconsin Rapids, a fire marshal made vendors remove their gas-fired cooking equipment from their vending tents where they prepared the food. One vendor had to move his cooker 45 feet from his tent! This hot oil cooker was out in the open and accessible to little children and elderly folks, and because the vendors had to travel from the fryer to the vending tent, those fryers often were unattended. The weather was threatening rain.

Can you imagine what would have happened if it had rained? That hot oil would have erupted all over the place. I took pictures of little children playing around this unattended cooker and one elderly woman stepping off the curb almost used the cooker to steady herself from falling. I threw a fit! I ended up driving 10 miles home so I could contact the state regarding this.

It took a whole day before they were able to give me an answer. They admitted that the law was vague and the state officials had to get together to figure out the right answer themselves.

No safety law should be this vague. I threw a big enough fit that the state did have the fire marshal backtrack a bit. But it is not his fault either; he tried to get the right answers from the state and even he was unable to get it right!

The law that exists is so vague that even officials admit they are unable to consistently interpret them, thus making vendors vulnerable to being shut down from one event to another — and they can face hundreds of dollars of fines.

The public is forbidden from copying this law and giving it to vendors and event organizers. If individuals want a copy of this law, they must purchase it from a private organization for around $100. This is ridiculous! Oh sure, if you finally contact the right person he or she will tell you that you can view it free online by going to a private website, but you are not allowed to copy it!

Well, I tried! I couldn't even find it online, and if I wanted to view anything I was required to first give my name and address, email address, phone numbers, etc. — and I had to agree to let them sell my personal information to anyone they choose.

We are talking about a state law! This is insane! Are these open records?

Hopefully some conscientious legislator who is willing to step out of that legislative sandbox where the other Democrats and Republicans are fighting with each other, will be able to clean up this mess before some child gets burned to death.